Grammys 2022: India’s Ricky Kej wins his second award as he bags Best New Age Album with Stewart Copeland
Written by Shresta Dutt on April 5, 2022
It was music’s biggest night on April 3 and the winners of the Grammys are out! The Recording Academy handed out awards in 26 different fields and across 86 categories airing live tonight from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Indian music composer Ricky Kej put India on the map once again with his second Grammy win. Ricky along with rock legend Stewart Copeland won the award for the Best New Age Album for Divine Tides. The YouTube distribution rights are with T-Series. Ricky greeted the audience with a ‘Namaste’ as he stepped on the stage to receive the award.
After his win, Ricky Kej took to Instagram to share a picture with Copeland, drummer for The Police, and wrote, “So grateful to have won the Grammy Award for our album Divine Tides. Absolutely love this living legend standing next to me – Stewart Copeland. Love all of you too! This is my 2nd Grammy Award and Stewart’s 6th.”
Ricky greeted the audience with a traditional ‘namaste’ and quoted, “It’s been a surreal experience to win my second grammy award today. The album Divine Tides is a collaboration with the living legend and one of the greatest drummers of all time, Stewart Copeland who is a 5 time Grammy award winner and the drummer of the legendary band,The Police. We have collaborated on this album for almost a year and this was done remotely because most of it was created during the pandemic. It was an amazing experience to meet him in person just 7 days ago in Las Vegas. I have grown up listening to Stewarts music as a child so it’s an unreal experience to be on stage and win an award alongside him. I dedicate this award to 75 years of India’s independence, that is ‘azaadi ka mahotsav’ a great milestone for India and a great year for me to win the award for India!”
“The exceptional collaboration of the music geniuses Stewart Copeland and Ricky Kej could not go unnoticed. The album, Divine Tides is produced by Lahari Music and this cannot be a greater time for India and for us with this win. The Best New Age Album is certainly a great win for us and it’s time for India to be recognised and put n the global map of art in all spheres!” says G Manoharan, CMD, Lahari Music on winning the prestigious Grammy Award!
T-Series head honcho Bhushan Kumar, “We at T-Series are so proud and ecstatic that the collaboration between Stewart Copeland and Ricky Kej and their exceptional work has been recognized the world over. T-Series is happy to be a part of their success story and we are confident this is the first of many.”
Ricky Kej was born in the USA but now lives and works in Bengaluru. A couple of days ago after being nominated for the Grammys, Ricky took to his Instagram handle to share a poster of their album and wrote, “With just over 10 days to go for the upcoming GRAMMY awards, a huge shout out to all my fellow artists and collaborators from around the world for being a part of this special journey with #DivineTides.”
Ricky received his first Grammy Award for his album ‘Winds of Samsara’ in 2015. He has over 100 awards in over 20 countries to his credit. ‘Divine Tides’ was released by the music company Lahari Music and the album comprises 9 songs and 8 music videos that were filmed around the world.
